We are nearing mid-April. It’s already the forth month, yet it feels like 1998 just began.

A year ago I was dealing with Abigail hating my guts, but earlier tonight she was hugging me tightly for a few minutes for we know time is slipping away.

Two years ago I performed the Easter skit at Heaton Christian Church with the high schoolers. Then Dan and Charlie and I had a deep talk of love. Dan couldn’t stand to even talk about love and today he talked about his blooming relationship with Abigail.

And three years ago I was receiving letters from Emily, my one true thing whom I haven’t seen, spoken, or written to in nearly a year.

And then there was today. Sarah came over just before midnight last night. My visitation hours ended at one this morning, but Sarah didn’t leave until 5:00 a.m. We went a little too far in those early hours of today. Our bodies just seemed to take over. We didn’t go all the way, but I do think in a slight way it made us closer, cause we took the time to talk about how we crossed the line.

Honestly, I think it was the scene from Lysistrata. I played an extremely horny character and I was rolling around on the studio floor with another girl. I think it turned both Sarah and I on.

The storm is 30 days away. Sarah is still with me. She told me last night that she was in love with me and that it scared her. She wondered why I chose her out of all the girls on campus.

These days are so weird. I have a whole new world to think about, yet I’m so in love with the one I have right here. Yet, I know that if I just take it a day at a time, it’ll all be okay.

I wondered today if I could spend my life with Sarah. And I don’t know. I’m not sure yet. We will see in time. One can never know what lies ahead.

Will I still write about Sarah three Aprils from now?

What a time in my life this has been. From November 22nd until this day, Sarah has been the defining force of my senior year.

I put my cap and gown on today. It felt weird. It’s been four years since I wore one of those.

Things are so up in the air. I look forward to the day when I know a person will always be by my side, for Sarah with me in my bed until five in the morning was an amazing treasure. To have your wife always by your side when you sleep, could there be anything more wonderful?

Well, yesterday was yesterday and tomorrow will soon be today. I wish time would slow down, just a little bit.

Sarah and I began a phone conversation at one in the morning and we didn’t hang up until four o’clock. We had the best time! I told her things about me that not many people know. I told her about two Florida girls, Syndi and my pen pal Emily.

I just read my May 8, 1995 entry, the one about Syndi and I under the waterfall, and because I was so young and so scared, I didn’t even reveal the full events of that evening to the pages of my journal. That entry is missing a great deal. Maybe it’s just retrospect, the me of now looking back on the me of then, that was needed for the truth of that night to be revealed to me.

Either way, early this morning, I told Sarah, my girlfriend, the story of Syndi and the story of why I broke up with Jeni. The truth is I had begun to hate how physical my relationship with Jeni had become. We never had sex, but I just felt like a dirty slimy dog of a pervert because I began to care more about where I could touch her with my hands than I did the quality of our conversations.

I then told Sarah how I had only known Syndi for two weeks prior to our May 7th, 1995 escapade and how wild it was for me to be around her because, well…because Syndi had (and I’m sure she still has) beautiful, large, firm, gravity-defying breasts that simply demanded male eye-contact. It was wild to be with her because I was used to Jeni, who was relatively flat-chested. So, for me to be lying under a blanket of stars, beneath a beautiful waterfall, next to the most well-endowed girl I had even known, who kept saying she was cold, well…I began to pray. If I felt like a slimy dog with flat-chested Jeni, how would I be if I was holding the insanely curvy Syndi? I feared I wouldn’t be able to control my hands or my whole self.

And, of course, I went on to tell Sarah about how after I offered to hold Syndi to keep her warm, she began talking about sex. Now I left this part out of my 1995 entry, but Syndi talked for a while about sex with her ex-boyfriend, and then she eventually said with a whisper, “Jacob, are you going to wait until you are married to have sex?”

With her breasts against my chest, I said, half giving up and half begging for mercy, “Well, that’s the way I had planned it.”

And I don’t know how much time had passed. It could have been a second. It could have been a minute. But eventually Syndi said, “Well, I guess we better go then.”

I have since concluded that God used that night, that beautiful girl, and that cleansing waterfall to purify me, and show me that I was not a slimy dirty dog, but a man who loved and respected women.

Sarah and I had a good laugh, mainly because I’m somewhat of a Christian leader on campus and not viewed as one who would talk so openly about my love of breasts to my own girlfriend. When trying to explain the shape of Syndi’s body to Sarah, I said, “Well, let’s just say, she’s is closer to your neck of the woods.” Sarah laughed forever.

It was then I told my girlfriend that I greatly enjoy her. I love to look at her. I love to hold her. I think she has a beautiful body, an amazing face, and I find her very sexy and pleasing to look at. Our physical relationship is not a very big one, but I enjoy it greatly.

She thanked me for telling her that.

We continued talking and she told me some of her stories. I also gave her a brief summary of Emily and I and even read some of Emily’s old letters to her.

She then told me that for the first time in a relationship, she was not jealous of the other girls in her man’s life. Then she started crying. And she said it felt so good not to have that burden.

I told her she has no reason to be jealous of the girls of yesterday, for they have helped make me who I am today, the me that loves her. I owe them so much for that.

Sarah is in the picture below; it was taken during a performance of the Christmas Concert.

Yesterday, Friday the 16th, was a record-breaking day for five girls came to my room and talked to me about their romantic pursuits.

First was Geana. We talked about sex because she and her boyfriend have sex. She knows the Bible teaches against it, but she says with him it doesn’t feel like a sin. She was in a car accident about five years ago where she suffered brain damage. After that, she said her thinking changed and started doing things she would have never done before. She seemed confused and admitted as much. I told her that if the love was true, both would stop having sex, guard their hearts and bodies, and get married. She seemed to see the logic in that. She’s an interesting and weird girl. After telling me all this stuff, she then took a nap on my sofa for an hour.

And while she was asleep, Sherlive called. She called to talk to me about Vince for she is but another girl who is crazy about him. I told her he was still confused about Laura and to just be his friend, but to also not be a stranger.

Then, Jessica came over and we talked about her and Allen. They went on a midnight hike at the beginning of the semester and she now likes him and wanted to know if I knew how he felt about her.

The next girl was Emily, not my pen pal, but Emily from the theater department, who plays the prostitute I have the underwear scene with in Cuckoo’s Nest. She wanted to talk about her confusing feelings towards Timothy and AJ.

And then the last girl to desire my company and advice was Sarah, my girl, and we got to talk about us. Thursday night, over the phone, she told me that she had a present for me, “a special present,” she added.

“Well, I’m excited,” I said.

I saw her around lunch time and we smiled brightly at each other. I called her while Geana was asleep only to find her crying. She said she was an emotional wreck, but that she had to go to class. I told her she was beautiful and that I loved her.

At dinner, she was still a little weird and I told her I would look her up after rehearsal. After rehearsal Sarah, Mason, and Jessi went to rent a movie. I watched it with them in Mason’s room with half the freshmen Performing Arts students, but Sarah never acknowledged I was there.

I was on duty and I got a call over the radio, so I left to deal with that and never returned. I went to my room, put on Hymn by Jars of Clay, then put it on repeat, and began to read the Gospel of John. While reading, a peace came over me. I have been praying for a while now for God to teach me to love like he loves. And I realized that he answered my prayer through Sarah. He showed me how much it hurts when he loves those who do not even acknowledge or look at him.

When I got to the second chapter, there was a knock at my door.

Sarah came in.

She sat on the floor, by the sofa I was sitting on, and laid her head upon me. I put my arm around her and ran my fingers through her hair.

She began to cry and she didn’t stop until she left, which was about an hour later.

My eyes shed no tears.

She eventually spoke. “You see a beauty in me that I have yet to see. I see how much you love and care for me and its the scariest thing I’ve ever known.”

“You ought to be me,” I smiled.

“I just don’t know what to do.”

“Do you want me to let you go?”

“Not completely.”

“I know not completely, but enough where we don’t have to pretend to play this little game? I can’t stop loving you Sarah, but I can stop trying to show it. And you know that I’m here if you ever need someone to hold you.”

She continued to cry.

“I’ve known you’ve felt this way for a long time,” I told her, “I just wanted to be come and tell me.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“You couldn’t hurt me.”

“I don’t want you to have to need me.”

“Sarah, I needed me to love you more than I ever needed you to love me. What has happened between us is a beautiful thing. God has told me to love you now, because we both will need it later on. Please don’t feel guilty.”

We looked at each other for a while.

She broke the silence with, “It’s not like I don’t love you, I do, and you know I’ll always be here,” she placed her hand on my chest, “but I’m just not ready.”

More silence passed.

“I had a cross necklace that I wanted to give you, something that I’ve had for a while that has been very special to me, but it feel out of my pocket today and I lost it.”

The tears poured from her eyes.

“I’m sorry.” I said.

After a few eternal silent moments of unending eye-contact, she finally kissed me on my cheek and said, “Thank you.”

Sarah and I made plans for today. I was going to see her after my dentist appointment, but it started snowing and mom wouldn’t let me go. I got upset, but she wouldn’t change her mind. I called Sarah and she was disappointed, but she understood.

Mom drove me to the dentist and we got a chance to talk. I told her I was disappointed because she doesn’t seem interested in my relationship with Sarah. She never asks about her, she never asks about anything.

We went back and forth for a while and I told her I was in love with Sarah and that I was glad that I got upset when I couldn’t go see her today. I’m glad that it hurt. It would be terrible if I was okay with not seeing the one I love. I told her that I watch her and Henry and I watch so many other married couples and that they’ve all become these sad sad stories of boredom.

Henry asks for kisses from mom and she keeps on walking. Henry sleeps in a chair downstairs alone while mom sleeps upstairs. I said, “if that is what happens to the fire that is inside me now, then I don’t want it at all.”

It’s true. I pray every day that my relationship with Sarah never becomes boring, or something that I’m used to. I pray it never looses its magic and I pray God helps us to keep it alive and new and real.

I think mom felt a little convicted. And she should. Christians should have the most amazing romantic relationships of all humans. God is love and he is supposed to be with them! If my mom and stepfather call themselves Christians, but they don’t share a bed and I never see them kiss each other, then I think they are being bad Christians.

I told Sarah all of this over the phone after the dentist and she agreed with me. I can’t wait till the next time I see her.

God gave me this life and I refuse to let the world ruin me. I am going to live. I am going to love. I am alive. I’m not dead like half this world. I am alive and well!

I finally got my Regent application in the mail. Life is exciting. Five and a half months left. I’m looking forward to the change. This will actually be somewhat easy, since I know Jesus is already preparing a place for me.

A couple of nights ago, when the moon was nearly full and the ground was covered in snow, Allen, Justin, Ashley, Shannon, and myself drove up to the top of Beech Mountain and sang praises to our Lord. The midnight silhouette of the mountains below took my breath away.

It was perfect.

As is all of life these days.

Whatever happened to those feelings I had for Jessica, or Sherlive, or even Abigail? I still see them, I still talk to them, I still even touch Abigail’s face, but it truly feels as if my emotions have moved on.

I love all the girls here, but there is not one of them I have come across whom I truly feel I want to spend my entire life with in marriage. Just last night I went to spend time with all the girls after the show: Lindy, Tracey, Jeni, Abigail, and Ann-Marie. Lindy, I believe, is content with her singleness, but the other four dream of love and a Godly man. I can see their pain and longing in their eyes as they wait for that moment to come. They almost seem desperate and hopeless.

I wish I could make them all happy forever, but I can’t.

So my job is to simply love all my friends, both guys and girls, for the next five and a half months, and then give each of them an extended “see you tomorrow.”

I feel God sending me to Regent. He’s sending me to the beach. Where I will continue to rest in this peace, love, and strength.

Friday morning at 5:00 a.m. I awoke and began my weekend. I left before 6:00 and ate breakfast at McDonald’s in Marion. I had 30 minutes to kill before my interview at the Radisson in Asheville at 8:30 a.m.

But it was then that I discovered we got the days mixed up and that my interview wasn’t until tomorrow (Saturday). So, I had 24 hours, a full tank of gas, and a prayer for God to take me somewhere.

He took me home.

After spending three hours headed east on I-40, I ended up in Sanford, NC. I surprised my mom at work, and visited Pastor Steve at his barn. He told me about how his horses have brought him closer to the love of God. I can understand that.

Then, God took me to a house I haven’t been to in well over a year. I drove down that long dirt driveway and there I saw a young blonde girl carrying a baby. I pulled up to the house, ran out and greeted her at the door with a hug.

Nearly a month ago, Jenna gave birth to 10 pound Michael Joshua. She will marry goateed Herb in December. I met him. Nice guy, but he couldn’t look me in the eye.

Tenielle freaked out when she saw me. She still smokes and says she is trying some modeling stuff.

It was great spending time with those girls. I love them so much and its hard to believe I have known them for nearly four years now.

I saw pictures of Jenna pregnant; she was so huge. I wonder if she realizes what has happened to her. If she knows she is now and always will be a mother. Can a 16-year-old truly know such a thing?

As I listened to the conversations between them in that trailer, I became insanely aware of their incorrect grammar, their double negatives, and their generally poor word choices. It hit me so suddenly, these two girls who have taught me so much about how to love unconditionally, they are what many would call “Trailer Trash.” The next pay check and getting cigarettes is all the seemed to be on their minds. I truly saw how valuable college was to me. Lees-McRae saved me, but I’m still in Jenna and Tenielle’s debt. They taught me more than they’ll ever know.

I ate dinner with Mom and Nate. She showed me some videotapes from the Brownsville Revival down in Florida and I cried watching them.

I went to walk and pray on the railroad tracks and asked God to let me into his presence. That evening was similar to Valentine’s Day of 1993. I fell to the ground and cried and laughed in all of God’s glory. It was a wonderful time.

I left at four in the morning to get back to Asheville in time. I talked a lot about God during my scholarship interview, but I didn’t get the award. It doesn’t matter, it felt like all of that was orchestrated, so I would need to borrow a car, so I could spending a few hours back home and realize all that God has done for me. There were so many hours driving this weekend in solitude that are more valuable to me than a scholarship. I had so much fun. I saw the sun rise twice in a row.

I spent time with Abigail and Lindy last night. We rented some movies. Abigail laid next to me for nearly four hours and I touched her hair and head.

For my birthday I was given Life on the Edge by Dr. James Dobson. In it he writes about the steps to true intimacy and stresses how these steps should be taken in order and at a very slow pace:

Eye to Body

Eye to Eye

Voice to Voice

Hand to Hand

Hand to Shoulder

Hand to Waist

Face to Face (Hugging/Kissing)

Hand to Face

-MARRIAGE-

Hand to Body

Mouth to Breast

Touching below the Waist

Sexual Intercourse

Wow! Did you notice step eight? He writes, “Surprisingly, touching a person’s face and hair in a romantic way is more intimate than kissing and hugging.”

According to Dr. Dobson, Abigail and I skipped four major steps. Oh well, these days, it’s the one thing I truly look forward to. Her face has become familiar to me. I know it so well, and even now, I miss it.